Collecting
by koboli
Summary: Ludwig collects something and is a little embarrassed about it. (In which Ludwig really should have known better. Larry figures out everything.)


I remembered how much I love the koopalings out of nowhere awhile back, and decided to see if I could still write! Hopefully I can!

Crossposted to Ao3

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"I have no idea what you're talking about," says Ludwig. He hasn't felt this backed into a corner since his last face-off with the pesky plumbers. Across from him, stands his second youngest brother – the youngest koopaling – with claws on his hips. Ludwig really didn't like the smug look painted on Larry Koopa's face, a look that was usually reserved for himself.

"C'mon, boss, I know what I saw." Larry gestures to what Ludwig is hiding behind his back. In response, the accused koopa shuffles backwards until his shell hits a drawer and shoves the offending items into it. Now that his hands are free, he points a claw toward Larry, doing his best to look angry rather than embarrassed. For his part, Larry does his best withholding his giggles, but eventually ends up cackling (and sounding startlingly like Lemmy Koopa). "You can't hide stuff from me," he says after a few more chuckles. "I'm a master snooper!"

Ludwig suddenly finds it very easy to be legitimately angrier than embarrassed and snarls. "You should know better than to go snooping in MY room! There are consequences for such lapses in judgement, Larry!" The elder koopa pauses, waiting for the typical signs of fear to show from his brother. Usually, he uses the first few signs of fear as his cue to gain the upper hand. He'll take a deep breath, smile, and say something about how nobody will get hurt as long as what just transpired remains between the two of them.

To his surprise (and annoyance), there is no shaking or quiet babbling, in fact, Ludwig watches as Larry shrugs, he keeps his palms up and even begins to shake his head. He almost looks like he was remorseful. Ludwig hasn't seen a motion this sarcastic since Kamek had to veto one of Bowser's more outrageous schemes. The metaphorical wind has been knocked from Ludwig's, once more, very embarrassed sales.

"Big bro," Larry says, still shaking his head. "Biggest bro, it's not MY fault you left them right on the table." In an instant, the faux apologetic expression gets replaced a grin so big it could rival Morton's. "I can't believe THE Ludwig von Koopa collects cards!"

At this, Ludwig realizes that his door is wide open, and literally anybody could be listening in on this conversation right now. He shoots forward and covers Larry's mouth. He hisses a command of silence to his younger brother, and drags him to the doorway, keeping his hand over his mouth all the while. He doesn't see anybody out in the hallway, and is too frazzled to do a more thorough check, so he deems everything as being alright for the moment. Ludwig lets out a sigh of relief. One that is quickly replaced with a startled gasp as he jerks his hand away from his brother. "Gah! You licked me?!"

Larry huffs, and Ludwig has to admit it was a decent impression of himself. "You put your claw there. When opportunity knocks," he grins, "you gotta answer!" The smaller koopaling is met with a heated glare. Larry sighs, probably not finding it funny when Ludwig isn't playing along. "Sheesh, Lud', you need to chill." Ludwig turns away to slam his bedroom door shut to avoid any other close calls, but Larry follows him to remain in the corner of his vision. "I mean, they're just cards. It's not that big a' deal. You should'a seen what I saw in Roy's room—"

Ludwig raises an eyebrow, unable to deny his curiosity, but not enough to ask. Roy was known for getting revenge on not just the people who told on him, but also the people they told, and Ludwig is actually on decent terms with Roy for the first time in a while. He would like to keep it that way. "I don't want to know," he says, then seems to remember something and crosses his arms in a way that is definitely not pouting. "And, for your information, they are not 'just cards', Larry. They are collectable; not toys for children."

"You are a children," Larry deadpans.

"I am not!" Ludwig responds childishly.

Larry sounds like he mutters something along the line of 'Sure, in your dreams,' but he directly addresses him before Ludwig can respond. "You're getting' pretty defensive about your very 'Cool' and 'Mature' trading card collection, big bro."

"I-I…" Ludwig, of course, chooses that moment to realize that he IS getting defensive. It's not quite his fault, Larry is known for the occasional blackmailing scheme, but reacting so strongly is only giving the sneaky koopaling more ammunition. Not his best idea. "You're right," he says, clearly surprising his brother, "I suppose I was merely surprised at my own carelessness. I… should have known better than to leave them in plain sight," He fixes his brother with another claw pointed directly at his face. "That still gives you no excuse to snoop around in my room," Larry just laughs and makes a totally innocent face, which drives the eldest to roll his eyes. "You're not fooling anybody."

"Haha, didn't think so!" The youngest koopaling suddenly becomes bored with all this standing around and talking, and skips over to the drawer. To Ludwig's surprise, he doesn't open it, Larry merely stares at him with an expectant expression.

Ludwig doesn't react, causing Larry to become impatient to the point where he crosses his arms and taps his foot. Ludwig is very confused, he wasn't don't scolding his brother yet. "What?" he asks.

"Don'cha wanna show me your collection?" Is what Larry says, and Ludwig is even more confused than he was.

"And why, pray tell, would I wish to do that?" This isn't play time. This is get-Larry-to-promise-not-to-tell-anyone-about-this time. Ludwig momentarily wonders if anybody would notice if Larry walked out of here with a concussion and no memory of the past day. Ugh, that's just so uncouth. Hmm…

More and more ideas began to flow through Ludwig's mind and he doesn't even notice Larry get frustrated enough take the collection books out of the drawer. "You seemed real proud of 'em," the youngest koopa says, startling his brother once more. "Gotta admit, I wanna see what's so great!" He shoots Ludwig with a grin, and the eldest is stunned with how genuinely interested his brother seems.

Not wanting to seem at a loss for words, Ludwig huffs and hops onto the side of his bed. "I see," he says as he snatches the book away. "I… suppose I can show you some, as long as you promise not to tell any of the others…"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, boss," Larry giggles as he crawls onto the bed. He nearly snuggles against Ludwig's shoulder to get a better vantage point and said koopa has half a mind to push him out of reach, but he would be lying if he said he minded the brotherly display. "Let's get to it!" Larry cheers. Ludwig often forgets how much fun it can be to share interests with his siblings, keeping to himself because he's the oldest is second nature. He can't help but find himself getting just as excited about this as his brother.

"Well, these…" Ludwig trails off into a very detailed explanation of what every single one of the battle cards do and how they're used in battle, along with card rarity and how he obtained each of them. He mentions how he wishes to have a chance to use them in battle one day, but he doesn't want to use them again an enemy who doesn't have a deck of their own.

He even opens up enough to show Larry the cards in his second book which weren't even battle cards, but instead collectable stat cards from many sports events Bowser and the Mario Bros. have been to. (Honestly, Larry hadn't seen what was so embarrassing about the collection until then; especially with the entire few pages dedicated to Mario. Ludwig assures him he only had them to complete the collection.)

Still, it isn't even that embarrassing, and Ludwig is really happy telling Larry all this useless information about Mario's best Tennis scores and how Bowser can easily up his game just by upgrading the stats on his backhand. Ludwig gets lost in his cards and sharing them with someone for the first time ever, that he doesn't notice Larry fell asleep until he feels a lukewarm drop of drool slide down his scales. Disgusting.

"And here I thought you were wanted to know everything about my cards."

"Ludwiiiiig." Larry's whine turns into a yawn and he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. "I really did wanna know, but you've been talking for hours!" Were they? Ludwig glances at a clock and, wow, Ludwig's always had a pretty terrible sense of time, but it honestly felt like he'd only been talking for a few minutes.

Larry must sense his surprise, because he pats the back of his older brother's shell before he hops off the bed. "You've got a super cool collection, brudwig," Ludwig's face scrunches up at the nickname "and it was super rockin' that you showed me! I promise I won't tell anybody or nothin', but bro…" For a moment Larry looks more mature than Ludwig has ever felt "Maybe you should show someone else your cards? I'm sure Lemmy wouldn't make fun of ya' if that's what you're worried about? It's just, uh, you seemed real happy telling me about them. It was different from how you get when you show off your tunes."

Despite his symphonies being referenced as 'tunes', Ludwig is able to see what Larry was getting at. Keeping so much inside gets exhausting, it might make him feel more confident about his interests if he actually shares things..? What an interesting idea.

"I see," Ludwig ends up saying. "I shall think about it. Erm... Thank you, Larry, for listening."

Larry laughs and waves. "No prob, boss! Sorry for snooping! I won't do it again….." Larry scuttles towards the door and throws it open. "… for at least two more days!" Ludwig listens to his younger brother cackle all the way down the hallway. He sighs, but can't even bring himself to be annoyed at the other koopaling's parting words.

Ah well, Ludwig will up his vigilance, maybe even surprise Larry by catching him in the act BEFORE anything gets found. He packs his cards away back into his nightstand. Sharing really wasn't so bad, even if it took a few hours away from his piano practice. Not wanting to waste any more time, he gets his sheet music out and seats himself at his instrument. However, as he begins to play he can't stop himself from wondering which of his cards would most likely catch Lemmy's attention – IF he ever gets around to sharing with him.

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Thanks for reading!


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